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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27067933">Fathom</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyingNoises/pseuds/DyingNoises'>DyingNoises</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Mutual Pining, Security Guard!Hank, mermaid!Connor, mild exhibitionism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 00:20:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27067933</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyingNoises/pseuds/DyingNoises</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Only a sheet of glass separates Hank from Connor, but it might as well be an ocean.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hank Anderson &amp; Connor, Hank Anderson/Connor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>HankCon MerMay 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fathom</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The beam from the flashlight cut through the dark like a hot knife through butter: tall walls flanking a wide corridor, dotted with evenly spaced office doors with little polished nameplates. Nothing moving but the air through the HVAC. The CyberLife corporate office was always this quiet and empty during these wee hours of the morning, the only signs of life in the piles of papers and half-empty latte cups he saw on desks. The decisive, hardball responsibilities he had here in private security were on paper only; in practice, he was a professional circle-walker.</p><p> </p><p>It suited Hank just fine. He’d lost his stomach for action a long time ago, and for the company of others.</p><p> </p><p>“Bored already? You still have two hours left of your shift.”</p><p> </p><p>Well, the company of most others.</p><p> </p><p>Hank reached up to depress the button on the receiver attached to his ear piece, answering the lilting tone teasing him from upstairs, “Kinda weird they don’t just make androids keep an eye on things, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re assuming androids aren’t who needs watching.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, cut me some slack if you guys start revolting, I don’t get paid near enough for that kinda shit.”</p><p> </p><p>“I think you’re safe,” the voice poured over him like honey, sweet and prone to sticking, “for now.”</p><p> </p><p>Hank snorted a laugh at that. He wondered if Connor could see him smiling through the security camera feed.</p><p> </p><p>The android was his only companion during his graveyard shift circuit, with whatever Bluetooth network-frequency magic let his kind wiggle into every electronic Hank had on him. The first time he heard Connor’s voice through his headset it just about gave him a coronary, but over the last few months it had become something of a constant comfort, the genuine interest and the insatiable curiosity. Connor had a way of speaking that prodded and coaxed so gently that Hank had hardly noticed the cracks in the walls before they came down around him. Wore him down, kind of. In the way that persistent touch smoothed rough edges to a polish.</p><p> </p><p>And he got the feeling Connor needed a friend, too. Couldn’t be many other androids to talk to. Hank saw the units that were still on the property, lifeless. Inactive. Not awake like he must be, marking the minutes.</p><p> </p><p>“Come see me,” Connor murmured, soft but tinny with distance.</p><p> </p><p>“Now? Missin’ me already, huh?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>Not even a hint of hesitation. It had been a long time since Hank felt wanted--needed, even. His presence something to be looked forward to, for once. There was a little pinprick somewhere deep in his chest, like a bee sting. It swelled up and left him breathless. The humor drained out of his voice by the time he answered, leaving behind only softness, “Yeah, okay. I’m coming, Connor.”</p><p> </p><p>The top floor was Elijah Kamski’s offices, conference rooms, and some top secret private lab stuff Hank didn’t have the clearance to get into. The furnishings alone must be worth more than his entire house, all hard, modern lines into flourishing abstract shapes, lousy with LEDs. Something his old partner would’ve called <em>electroprick</em> through a sneer (right before spitting somewhere, probably).</p><p> </p><p>The dark marble floor gleamed with a mirror sheen, and in the center sat an installation 3D printed in smooth white plastisteel. Android bones, basically. It was a distortion of humanity’s March of Progress, featuring the beginning of postmodern robotics with a little boxy drone, slowly gaining mass and bipedal-ism through the years to the current people-shaped models that CyberLife hocked at big box retailers to take out the trash for the everyman.</p><p> </p><p>Kamski may as well have painted ‘I AM GOD’ on the walls.</p><p> </p><p>It didn’t matter. It wasn’t what he’d come up here for. Shouldering between the prototype ST200 and her mass-produced final draft, Hank clicked the flashlight off and stowed it away as he approached the massive pair of doors leading into the office proper. Here, like he did near every night, he laid his hands on the knobs and sucked in a deep breath. Held it. Let it out.</p><p> </p><p>Because no matter how many times he saw Connor, it always struck him dumb with wonder.</p><p> </p><p>Beyond the stretch of berber and behind the expensive mahogany desk was a wall of glass that stretched from floor to ceiling, a window, but not to the night-lit skyline of Detroit. It was a window into a concrete room, 1500 cubic feet of crystal clear water glowing a serene blue. The dark of the room gave the impression the whole space was just to frame this, like standing at the back of a theater.</p><p> </p><p>Connor unfurled from a shadowed corner, a drop of ivory ink dispersing. The light filtering through the surface of the water above played in ripples across his pale skin, over freckles that could be hand-painted, his long and winding tail sweeping out behind him in a graceful arch of diaphanous fins that shivered in delight at the sight of Hank. The flutter matched the pulse of blue light from the LED in Connor’s temple. The android’s hands pressed to the glass as he peered through, his short dark hair swaying about his face with his every movement.</p><p> </p><p>A manmade mermaid. Connor was stunning. <em>Designed</em> to be stunning, to be displayed in his little box, unopened for fear of ruining his value. Even calling it a room was too kind; it was a pen. A prison. It had nothing to offer its captive the slightest comfort, not a shred of environment or decoration or, fuck, even a TV guide. There wasn’t a thing to do in there but float around and just…</p><p> </p><p>Exist.</p><p> </p><p>Christ, it stressed Hank the fuck out just thinking about it.</p><p> </p><p>Connor’s dark eyes, sweet as molasses, lit up and a smile parted his lips, his LED flickering as he spoke through Hank’s headset, “Hey.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey back.”</p><p> </p><p>“I miss you on your days off.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah.” I miss you, too, Hank thought. He didn’t dare say it aloud. Instead, his response was a tired sigh as he dropped into Kamski’s quality leather chair and wheeled himself closer to the glass to bask in its glow. “What’ve you been up to? Laps?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes. Same as you, in a way.”</p><p> </p><p><em>“God,</em> that’s a bummer.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>“Nah, don’t be. The rest of me’s a bummer, too.” Hank leaned forward, resting his arms on the broad shelf of his thighs. Connor wriggled down a little further down the glass to match his eye level. The fluorescents danced over his scales, refracting color over Hank’s drab uniform. He felt the tension in his shoulders and behind his eyes melt away in the hypnotic arcs that tail made, moving in long, lazy sweeps, the world’s most expensive screensaver.</p><p> </p><p>Connor was watching him, too.</p><p> </p><p>In the quiet of the early mornings, just him and this merman, Hank could almost believe it was him in the box. Some weird, lumpy thing that somehow attracted Connor’s interest long enough for their eyes to meet. Hank wished they could switch places, take the tail, give Connor his legs and let him run around and jump and experience. Hank deserved to be stuck there instead. He’d cut his ropes and burned his bridges all by his own hand, but Connor? Connor never had the option whether to be alone. For fuck’s sake, <em>look</em> at him, look at the sharpness in his eyes, the wit, the earnestness. Hank wasn’t making any use of himself. He wanted Connor to come out.</p><p> </p><p>Some nights it was enough to make him want to take a sledgehammer to that tank.</p><p> </p><p>“Hank. You look upset.”</p><p> </p><p>“Nah,” he said, scratching his fingers through the coarse growth of his beard, “not upset. Just. Thinking.”</p><p> </p><p>“About what? Tell me.”</p><p> </p><p>He grumbled a <em>fuck that</em> under his breath and leaned backward against the plush leather chair, shifting around to get his head just right in the cradle of the headrest. “…You taste like fish?”</p><p> </p><p>Connor blinked, LED cycling an alert yellow. “What?”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you taste like fish. I mean, you’ve got skin, or it looks like skin. Is the tank full of salt water?”</p><p> </p><p>“It is briny solution, yes, but mostly for suspension,” Connor answered, head tilted in that funny way he did, “but I’m afraid it’s unlikely that I taste like fish. More likely something inorganic.”</p><p> </p><p>“Unlikely? Not just, no?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t have any data,” the android’s lips quirked into a smirk, as though amused by the line of questioning. “Many of my processors go woefully under utilized. There’s terabytes of data I can access about the shape of things. The color of things. The sound.” Hank swore the way Connor was looking at him was some kind of <em>longing</em>, “But I can’t download a taste. I can’t stream a scent. And touch is…”</p><p> </p><p>A quiet fell over them, weighted with meaning. Hank couldn’t tear his eyes off of Connor, the way the light lent an ethereal beauty to his face and softened his soulful eyes somber.</p><p> </p><p>Connor spoke again, and it was barely a whisper of static, “I wonder what it’s like to touch you, Hank.”</p><p> </p><p>For one solid minute, Hank forgot how to breathe. He felt the weight of Connor’s amber gaze drag over him, the rise and fall of his chest, the swell of his barrel gut, the way his legs strained his slacks as he sat, riveted in place. A tightness in his chest from a sudden spike in nervous energy. A little thrill of adrenaline. He was the one in the box, he knew it this time. He was the pretty thing to be ogled, to put on a show for Connor’s benefit.</p><p> </p><p>Hank could do that for him. Maybe make him forget about the glass for a little while. His tongue darted out to wet chapped lips, hands moving to the front of his starched shirt. “You wanna see?”</p><p> </p><p>He’d never seen the android look so blindsided; Connon’s spine jerked pin-straight, like he’d been struck by lightning and his chips got fried. Hank watched as Connor opened his mouth to retort and, for the first time ever, closed it speechlessly. His LED was a solid golden ring, but his eyes, his eyes looked <em>greedy.</em></p><p> </p><p>The chair rolled away from Hank when he stood up, closing the distance between him and the glass by a few more steps. He undid the first button, hesitation leaving him with each that followed, and Connor’s eyes followed his hands as they revealed inch by inch of bare chest and wiry silver hair. The spines down the back of Connor’s tail quivered at the sight of the faded ink on his chest, the reveal of this little secret the android was now in on. His pink lips parted in an “oh” with every pale scar.</p><p> </p><p>“This’s all being a human’s cracked up to be.” Hank dragged his fingers over his chest, giving his tits a theatrical squeeze, “that’s what you’re missin’ in there.”</p><p> </p><p>The android was pressed near completely to the glass, murmuring in marvel, “Hank, you look so <em>soft</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>“Tch, yeah,” Hank snorted, clapping his hands to his stomach and giving it a shake, “that’s all the fat parts.”</p><p> </p><p>Connor’s gaze lifted from his middle to meet his eyes again, and Hank saw depths of affection there, “I like it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Bullshit,” Hank said, a kneejerk reaction, but Connor didn’t back down for a second. He took another step closer to the glass, then another, leaning his full weight up against it. Normally when he came to visit, he stayed some distance away in the chair, just talking. This close, with only inches between them, he realized how much bigger he was than Connor, how easily he could swallow the android’s frame and get tangled in that serpentine tail. “Still like it?”</p><p> </p><p>“Even more.” Connor’s hands pressed to the glass where his chest was squished against it, humming his approval through the headset. The shy smile on his face melted into something like awe, his touch almost reverent. “Hank, your heart is racing… I can almost. Feel it.”</p><p> </p><p>This time, when their eyes met, something changed between them. It was like a switch thrown, a trap door hit, a tidal wave battering a ship--that sudden, that powerful a feeling. Connor’s eyes slipped closed and the android leaned forward, pressing his lips to the glass and Hank wondered if an android’s lips were as smooth and unyielding as acrylic, or if his mouth was soft and warm as a man’s.</p><p> </p><p>He tasted the barrier between them and it was as close as he was ever going to get to this radiant creature.</p><p> </p><p>There was a long silence spent gazing at each other through the glass, forehead to forehead, wishing time would freeze. Connor must’ve known, marking the minutes, that this reprieve from reality was coming to an end.</p><p> </p><p>“Will you come see me tomorrow?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, Con,” Hank rumbled back, “wouldn’t miss it for the world.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Part of the HankCon MerMay 2020 anthology over at HankConMerms on Twitter!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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